Latest Car News in India

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Ford B Max with longer wheelbase in the offing for India

Ford is certainly preparing in a big way for India. Where it is to extend its dealer network in India, the American car maker will soon be adding more Ford car to its line up in India. The Ford Ecosport is well known and its first MPV Ford BMax is also on its way to reform the MPV market in India that is still relatively unexplored. However, shaking the land dominated by Toyota Innova and new Mahindra Xylo besides Chevrolet Tavera Neo3 and the upcoming Maruti Ertiga besides others will not be an easy task for Ford BMax.

The B Max MPV is scheduled to be launched at the upcoming Geneva Motor Show and India expects a launch immediately after it. The Rs 6 lakh to Rs 8 lakh MPV will be a five seater car and is launched worldwide as a replacement of Ford Fusion. As per the latest developments, Ford Fiesta based B Max will be launched in India with longer wheelbase.

The BMax that has sliding rear doors will be the next addition to Ford India’s line up and the sub compact mini MPV is expected to go on sale in April May this year. The pillarless design based B Max has bright prospects in India as it is said to share a lot of components with Ford Fiesta and the sedan has been localized very well in India. Thus Ford will have to do very little effort to produce and launch its first MPV in the country. The B Max however will have a longer wheelbase in order to be different from Fiesta sedan. Ford’s favorite 1L EcoBoost engine is expected to power the new Ford MPV.

In addition to the B-platform based MPV, a C-platform based MPV called as Ford C Max is also in the offing, however experts believe that since the latter is too costly, Ford will refrain from introducing it in India for the time being.